


I'm Sorry

by bdiddy150 (dismalspacenoodle)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Birds, Brotherly Love, Castiel has stml, Castiel in the Bunker, Dean is a Good Friend, Destiel if you squint - Freeform, Gen, Good Friend Sam, Graceless Castiel, Hurt Castiel, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Season/Series 11, Sad, Sad Castiel, Sad Dean, Sad Sam, Sastiel if you squint, Scared Castiel, Short term memory loss, Whump, Wincest if you squint, Wincestiel if you squint, cas is NOT okay, everyone is gay and no one is gay depending on how you look at this, mostly just, non consensual lobotomy, platonic, sparrows, squint and your ship shall appear!!, thats a tag i never thought i'd use, theres no shipping okay, to be clear there is no romance in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-24
Updated: 2016-06-24
Packaged: 2018-07-18 01:45:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7294558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dismalspacenoodle/pseuds/bdiddy150
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas has short term memory loss-- and some days are better than others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Sorry

**Author's Note:**

> I went to go see Finding Dory and was struck by how god damn sad it was; she forgot about her own family????? Anyways, that led me to... gay fanfiction!! Sorta.  
> I do realize Naomi is loooooong dead in canon, but for the sake of this fic, she was alive, screwed with cas via lobotomy one last time, and then got stabbed in the eye by the bros or w/e your favorite naomi-death-scene your mind can cook up is.  
> Title is from finding dory.

Dean woke up to a gentle hand on his shoulder. Cracking his eyes open, he tiredly studied the blurry shape in front of him as it slowly came into focus. 

A quick look into the eyes of the man standing next to him let him know-- today was a "good day"; at least, as good as it gets. The sapphire eyes didn't look to be glazed over or terrified to find a stranger asleep in his room; instead, they shone with a gentle fondness, the constant underlying confusion that sprung up after...  _it_  happened as a result of his faulty memory fading back until it was barely noticeable.  His hair still stood on end as if he had't bothered (or  _remembered)_ to brush it out, but that was normal for him, even before. It was both endearing and unsettling to see an angel of the lord with sex hair and puppy dog eyes waking him up at the crack of dawn (if his glance at the alarm clock next to him did any justice) to do who knows what.

"Hello, Dean," Castiel said softly, drawing Dean out of his study of the angel. 

Dean sighed. "What's up, buddy?" 

Cas gave him a faint smile. "The sparrow chicks hatched." Dean figured he should've expected that; Cas had been going on and on about the nest right outside of the bunker door for weeks now. "I can feel her happiness," Cas continued blithely. "She finds such joy in creatures who will bring her so much pain." Dean should've expected this, too, as Cas often digressed into philosophical ramblings that usually stopped being about birds or flowers or trees, instead veering into extended metaphors for God and the divine or Cas himself, and his relationship with the brothers. Cas fixed his intense gaze onto Dean, who was struck for a pang of nostalgia, remembering when the staring had seemed to be a nuisance and not one of the last things remaining of Cas' original personality. "Why do you think she insists upon harboring useless creatures? They cannot help bring in food, or defend the nest, and they make doing either of those so much harder." He sighed. "In time, the mother will push them out of her nest, and they will fly away, to die or to live, but no longer hindering the mother ever again." A pause. "Dean, why do you keep me here?"

Dean felt a trickle of shame welling up in his gut. Even after all these years, everything they'd been through, the brothers had managed to engrave the idea of Cas being nothing but a means to an end so deep it persisted through both the hundreds of times they had told him he was  _family_ , through the daily forgetfulness, and through Naomi's final mind wipe. "Cas, we don't 'keep' you here; you  _stay_ here because you're our family."

Cas frowned. "Sam is your family. Charlie, John, Mary, Bobby-- they were your family. I am--"

" _Family_ , Cas," Dean interjected. "And when you get hurt, you go to your family."

"Yes," Cas murmured, tilting his head slightly to the side. "Naomi-- she did something to me."

"She wiped your mind, Cas," a voice said from the doorway.  _Sam_. Dean was glad Sam had shown up; he didn't think he could walk Cas through all the times Naomi had fucked him up again. Cas nodded.

"She did so many times, correct?"

"Yeah," Sam managed, and it looked like Dean wasn't the only one affected by the topic. He walked closer, sitting beside Dean on the bed.

"That's why I'm like this," Cas concluded. Sam sucked in a breath, prepared to defend Cas from himself, but Cas instead directly addressed the younger of the pair. "Sam, the sparrows have hatched."

Sam gave him a warm smile, covering up the pain exceedingly well. "That's great, Cas." He hesitated, and then asked, "Want to show me them?"

Cas nodded, walking out of the room without waiting to see if Sam was following. Sam got up and walked out the door after the angel, Dean following close behind.

They spent the day looking at the sparrows and doing mundane little tasks-- cleaning up the dishes, tidying the rooms, picking up in the library.

Today was a good day-- at least, better than most.

 

It was one of the rare days the Winchesters awoke before the angel, Dean having been pulled out of his sleep by Sam, who had stood over his bed shaking after a nightmare from Hell (literally). After he had calmed down, Sam suggested they go check on Cas-- something Dean had been both dreading and looking forward to. 

Upon arriving in Castiel's room (a room he still called the guest room, insisting it was not  _his_  room, as he had no right to impose on the Winchester's home, to which Sam and Dean both called bullshit), the brothers stepped forward, expecting Cas to be sitting on his bed in some state of alarm or confusion, only to find the angel asleep, lying flat on his back. 

Sleeping, Cas really did look ten years younger-- the lines etched into his face from worry and hardship fading away, leaving it open and vulnerable. Despite that, it unnerved Dean to see his friend asleep; it was just further proof of how far he had fallen. The Cas in front of him was a shadow of his former glory, a pale impression of Castiel, Angel of the Lord, who had walked into the barn so many years ago. He was less angelic than ever; yet, more  _human_  than ever, too. Castiel was their greatest asset; Cas, their best friend. They had ignored Cas for so long, he forgot he wasn't only Castiel, until he forgot himself altogether. 

Dean turned back to the bed when he heard sheets rustle, and sighed at the sight before him. Cas was backed up against the wall, angel blade in hand, shouting at them. " _Gonmedvan parrdrux gisgna chis-geol?"_  After repeating the question several times, he switched to " _darsar oai olani fongonis?",_ and then seemed to get his bearings a little bit, using human languages. " _Qui ets i on sóc jo i què és vostè? Pwy ydych chi a ble wyf fi , a beth ydych chi? Salam eul hago nan eodi igo dangsin eun mueos-inga? Tko si ti bila sam ja što si ti? Quid tu es qui sum?"_

It broke Dean's heart to see Cas struggling through different languages, getting progressively more terrified as he went, until he was basically trembling as he desperately questioned them with unrecognizable words. "Hey, Cas, eyes on me. C'mon, buddy, don't go  _Yojimbo_  on me." At Sam's questioning glance, he snapped, "Shut up, Sammy, it was a great movie."

"Where am I?" Cas asked scratchily, his voice lilting with a faint accent that the brothers had come to know as Enochian.

"You're in the bunker, Cas. In your room," Sam softly explained, hoping today was a better day. 

Cas shut his eyes, seemingly concentrating, only to shriek out, " _Dasar oiol parrmedir druxvan?  Bigal dttoui nanaeel ol vpaah?"_

"Cas, we don't speak Enochian," Sam choked out. Dean stayed silent, knowing what was coming next.

There was an angel blade suddenly at Sam's throat, and then Cas was being held down by Dean, arms behind his back and Sam holding the blade with a look of unparalleled sorrow. The two gently escorted Cas down the the panic room, ignoring the angel's curses and struggling as they wrestled him down the stairs and shut the door on him. Cas raged against the walls, at first yelling in both Enochian and Latin for his release, then quieting down and praying. Dean walked back up the steps, hollowly grabbing a beer and sitting at the table. Sam followed him sadly, trying to block out the frantic murmuring that followed him up into their kitchen. 

Today was not a good day. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Anything wrong with this? Yes. Yes there is. Please point it out to me so I can fix it! I wrote this at two in the god damn morning and I cleaaaarly have no idea how to write any of these characters, but criticism is greatly appreciated!  
> When cas is going through languages, he is asking "who are you, where am I, what are you" over and over again, and then later, when he yells in enochian, he is saying "what did you do to my grace, where are my wings"  
> If you want to contact me, [my tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/dismalspacenoodle) is dismalspacenoodle, or you can use the link.


End file.
